Jul 4, 2018
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Who benefits—the courts or the people?
According to the US sentencing commission, in 2016 alone, 97.3 percent of all federal criminal cases were resolved with a plea bargain. Who benefits—the courts or the people?
The issue matters because about half of the people in costly and overcrowded U.S. prisons got there after being charged with and convicted of drug offenses. Even though many of those inmates worked on the ground floor of drug operations, they still serve long prison sentences because of five- and 10-year mandatory terms that Congress breathed into life during the heart of the crack cocaine scare in the 1980s. Prosecutors have the option of adding more charges based on a person's prior offenses, including low-level drug possession cases.
https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2013/12/05/248893775/report-threat-of-mandatory-minimums-used-to-coerce-guilty-pleas
https://www.ussc.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/research-and-publications/research-publications/2017/FY16_Overview_Federal_Criminal_Cases.pdf
Support the NFL and ACLU in criminal justice reform efforts. Just click here: https://action.aclu.org/secure/real-criminal-justice-reform-now It only takes a minute.